Bed and breakfasting shares as a non resident

If you're non resident and are able to take advantage of the exemption from capital gains tax it makes sense to make full use of it. This is particularly the case if you're non resident and ordinarily resident and are looking at returning back to the UK. In this case after you return to the UK you'll be subject to CGT on any disposal of your assets. Whether you bought them in the UK or when you were overseas is irrelevant. Similarly there is no partial relief where part of the gain arose whilst you were non resident. All that matters is your tax status at the date of disposal. So if you've returned back to the UK you'll lose the benefit of your previous CGT exemption. Given that this represents a tax saving of 28% of the uplift in value it makes sense to ensure it's fully utilised. The best option would be to arrange a disposal of your assets to an external third party in the tax year before your return to the UK. Provided you've met the five year anti avoidance rule (if it applies) you'll then avoid UK CGT. Selling shares If you're selling shares you also need to take account of the bed and breakfast rules. The bed & breakfasting rules don't mean that if you sell the shares today the effective date of sale is in 30 days time. The bed & breakfasting rules are matching rules which mean that shares sold are matched against shares purchased on the same day or in the next 30 days. In practical terms this means that you need to wait for at least 31 days before repurchasing the shares. If you don't then the shares sold today would be matched with the purchase during the next 30 days. It's then unlikely there would be a gain arising as the base cost of the acquisition would more or less equate to the proceeds on disposal. The original base cost would apply to the shares then held so that a future disposal would crystallise the current gain. Therefore if you didn't wait for 31 days you wouldn't be taking advantage of your non residence CGT exemption and tax free uplift in the base cost on disposal. If you need to repurchase within a 30 day period you could look to other options (eg repurchasing via your wife, an ISA, using CFD's, a company etc). The bed and breakfast rules only apply to shares and other similar assets (eg forex, CFD's, options etc). Sales of property for instance wouldn't be effected and you could sell and repurchase different (or even potentially the same) property free of CGT irrespective of the 30 day period.